A Knight who Eternally Regresses - Chapter 401

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

A KNIGHT WHO ETERNALLY REGRESSES

Chapter 401: To Seize Victory

= = =

Both armies moved at dawn.

The two forces stood in a setup similar to yesterday.

A wide plain became the stage, and the blowing wind became the witness.

Instead of the fighters who had stepped forward before, this time archers, infantry, and part of the cavalry formed up in battle lines.

They never made an explicit promise, but the commanders at the front of both sides took sunrise as the signal.

Enkrid watched and walked.

His steps were light, like he was out for a stroll.

It was not a real stroll.

He had armed himself carefully, all three swords and his Whistle Dagger included.

Something else had changed from before. The positions of his swords were a little different.

Silver sat at his left hip, Spark at his right.

He matched each to the traits of his hands, then fixed a loop behind his belt so Gladius could rest straight across his lower back.

Its tip had been chipped in the last battle, shortening the blade a little, so carrying it this way felt easier now.

About two finger joints of length were gone.

Would the dwarf who made this be upset if he saw it?

Did they not all take pride in their weapons?

An elf took pride in the trees, flowers, and plants they raised, and was called a child of trees and flowers.

A dwarf was a child of iron and flame.

Giants proved themselves with blood and slaughter, so they were children of hot blood.

Beastfolk began hunting to survive, so they were called children of mountains and fields.

Dragonkin stood alone, so they were the parentless.

Frogs put everything on the line for dreams, so they were called children of dreams.

Humans had no single symbol, so they could become anything.

Random thoughts.

Walking beside the unit, Enkrid checked his gear.

Sword positions, sword belt condition, even his movement routes so the blade at his back would not hinder him.

"Block, dodge, strike."

Deceive, strike, smash.

A mock battle built from replaying yesterday's fight.

Anyone watching him flail his hands and feet while walking might call him insane, yet not one man glared or complained.

"Are you fighting with us again today?"

One soldier asked with surprising courage.

A group had halted while the wider force was still moving into formation.

Roughly fifty men, a company-scale unit. The commander at the front asked. Fifty pairs of eyes turned to him.

Enkrid nodded.

He would fight the same bastard from yesterday again.

It was a hunch, but he felt sure.

That man had said he lost, but the flame in his eyes had not dimmed at all. He would come again.

After finishing his route planning and review while walking between formations, Rem, Jaxon, Ragna, and Dunbakel came up behind Enkrid.

"Look at that, weather's cloudy."

Rem said.

Enkrid had finished reviewing and route checks, so he looked up too.

It did not seem like rain would fall right away, but the sky was overcast.

Dark clouds were moving in from the far side, one by one. Their movement was visible, so they were coming fast.

Still, there was no smell of rain yet. Dunbakel flared her nostrils and said,

"It'll rain tomorrow at the earliest."

Ragna looked unconcerned. Jaxon was never a man who spoke through expression.

As always, his blank face gave nothing away.

Rem grinned and spoke, clearly excited.

"We're gonna shit blood today."

Enkrid nodded at Rem's words. It made sense.

He meant the battlefield would turn brutal and hard. Enkrid had already talked about it with Rem at dawn.

"You know it, right?"

"Know what?"

"If those bastards had rushed in right away yesterday, we'd have been in way worse shape."

No explanation was needed. He knew by instinct and understood it in his head.

The enemy had formed proper lines. Their side looked formed on the outside, but discipline was not unified.

Even so, the enemy pulled back.

Why?

Because their heads were just helmet racks? No chance. Then the answer was simple. No deep thinking needed.

They had prepared something.

Preparation worth spending a whole day on.

Enkrid reached the same conclusion and told Marcus something similar.

Marcus had seen it too, of course.

"I know. But it was also a chance for us. We needed that time."

They had fewer numbers and weaker training. The other side had a unified command system, while this side was close to having even its existing structure fall apart.

Of course, Enkrid's performance had oiled those creaking parts in a single day.

Just knowing someone like him stood on their side gave comfort and strength.

Heat and desire stretched in the right direction.

Marcus used all of it. He used every arrangement Crang had taught him. Because of that, crows flew all night without rest.

In other words, the enemy used an extra day to prepare something, but that day was needed time for their side too.

"That's why I even grilled meat."

Rem said.

Enkrid's thoughts vanished quickly. The meaning was clear.

Rem had shown off his cooking out of pure anticipation.

Even when they hunted down and killed the Undying Madman before, Rem had been full of complaints.

Why would he not be?

It was chasing a man who ran, not a proper fight.

Rem wanted to fight.

He wanted a blood-splitting fight.

Desire and craving boiled over. He wanted to burn all of it and move.

He was a campfire stacked with logs, so hot the flames were about to spread outside the pit.

I'll burn everything and fight.

A true warrior was one who knew how to burn his soul in battle.

Enkrid looked at Rem.

What's with him?

Today, that heat felt excessive.

Natural enough, maybe, but Ragna felt it too, and so did Jaxon.

Neither said anything. Dunbakel looked troubled, and Esther sat on top of Odd-Eye.

The two armies were barely within effective arrow range.

Like twins, both commanders shouted at the same time.

"Fire!"

Arrows came first. They were the opening of battle, and the signal.

Doom, doom, doom, doom, doom!

Bwoooooo!

Drums and horns filled the plain, and above that sound, arrows covered the sky.

Their side had five hundred longbowmen, the enemy had over a thousand.

The arrows from both armies reached each other.

Straight, sturdy wood like oak or pine was cut and shaped into shafts, then iron heads and fletching were glued on with hide glue.

That was all it took, a short piece of wood with a sharp metal tip, to steal a life.

Thunk!

A soldier with bad luck took an arrow through a gap in his helmet and collapsed. There were not many that unlucky.

The front infantry endured with shields tilted up.

"Chaaaarge!"

The enemy moved first. Marcus had prepared a countering style from the start, so this was expected. From the right-middle section of the Count's formation, a cavalry group peeled away.

"Ride!"

They were lancers. The cavalry attempted a charge.

If a cavalry charge punched a hole in a formation, that alone could decide the battle.

For the kingdom army, this was the kind of fight where they needed to block every single enemy attack just to keep a chance.

"Run, move! Go, there! Formaaation!"

A commander on their side roared orders. He spotted where the cavalry wave was coming and gave brilliant directions. A group of infantry stood in the exact area targeted by the charge.

It was the same commander who had spoken to Enkrid earlier.

He shouted again.

"Piiiiikes! Braaaace!"

Whoong, whoong!

They raised the spears high. Arms tensed, spear butts to the ground, then drove them in like stakes.

Pikes were long spears. Every one of them was a pikeman trained in the same motion.

The spears became a wall. It was a spear wall, one of the best answers to cavalry.

It already looked too late for the enemy riders to turn away.

Dududududu!

With hoofbeats like thunder, the front rank crashed straight into the spear wall.

Pabubububuk!

Spearheads pierced both horse and rider.

Blood sprayed everywhere. Bones snapped across the line.

The horses died, but some riders were flung sideways instead.

The speed of their own charge became the tool that killed them.

"Kyaaaagh!"

"Uaaagh!"

Screams announced this place was now hell.

Seeing fallen riders who barely survived, soldiers on their side drew longswords and stabbed and hacked.

Thud! Crack!

"Die!"

"Shit!"

Even then, a few mounts forced through gaps in the spear wall.

A heavy warhorse was a weapon by itself. Being crushed to death under that weight was common.

No, even breaking one arm or leg often meant death here.

A few horses toppled and opened holes in the spear wall. Waiting soldiers thrust spears into the gaps and filled them.

"Charge! Chaaaarge!"

Enemy cavalry pushed through by numbers. Even so, the infantry holding the spear wall endured in the end.

The soldiers in the center of it did not know, but from a commander's eyes this was a major win.

The start was good.

Marcus clenched his fist.

Then another enemy group moved. More cavalry broke out from their formation.

You prepared everything, huh.

Horse archers.

Not many, at most fifty. Still, matching their mobility would not be easy.

Even if they only fired while running away.

Every one of them had at least that much skill. Their leader had rushed in on day one and died to Enkrid's sword, but these men could fight.

It was more accurate to say the troop type itself was dangerous.

They rode straight at the kingdom's commanders.

Anyone watching would admit it, this was a well-trained unit.

The Count's first prepared blade, maybe.

Enkrid watched them too.

It was a wide plain, so mounted movement naturally caught the eye.

If left alone, the damage will be huge.

He understood that, but it was not time to move.

Marcus isn't an idiot.

From yesterday's strategy meeting, his subordinate commanders did not look bad either.

As soon as that thought ended, a mounted group rode out from their side too.

Only a little over ten, but at the front rode the owner of bright orange hair.

Flap, flap!

A red cloak snapped in the wind.

It was Eisia and her squire group.

They had said they would not borrow knight-level power, but these were already forces stationed in the royal palace.

"For Naurillia!"

Eisia shouted.

She and her squires sprinted, shot out in one burst, then chased the horse archers.

The enemy fired while retreating. Eisia raised her sword and knocked aside the most dangerous arrows.

She twisted her wrist and moved her blade, without needing even a shield.

Then she finally caught them from behind.

Her swinging sword lopped one man's neck off. Before that severed head hit the ground, Eisia's sword stabbed into a second man's back.

She rode alongside them, thrusting and swinging without mercy.

Terrifying momentum.

"Keep fighting to the end!"

As the horse archers were cut down to half, some enemy cavalry peeled off and charged at Eisia's knight group.

That was not the end of it.

Enemy infantry began to advance, and three or four especially skilled-looking men among them headed for Eisia and the knights.

* * *

As the infantry started going wild and skilled fighters began standing out everywhere, Rem ran too.

"I'm going first!"

The moment Rem kicked off the ground, his body looked like it stretched as he surged forward.

It was a movement that needed technique.

Naturally, Enkrid could do it too.

You just stomped down with the strength called superhuman might and sent power forward instead of jumping up.

Of course, that was not easy to do.

Enkrid had only ingrained it after countless todays.

Rem rushed a man who had broken out from the side of the infantry.

The man spotted Rem, changed direction, and charged head-on.

He carried two hammers.

Rem drew an axe and swung. The opponent swung a hammer.

Jjeong!

With a thunderous clash, infantry on both sides opened space between them.

Enkrid caught a shadow appearing behind Rem for an instant.

A hidden man burst out from the infantry that had pulled back and thrust.

His movement was unbelievably quick.

The thrust itself was astonishingly fast and sharp too.

It came at a hard-to-predict moment, yet Rem twisted his body and dodged.

The blade grazed his lower back. Rem evaded and chopped down with his axe, and the attacker retreated.

No need to help. If it got dangerous, Rem could pull himself out. If not, he would win. That was Rem standing there.

"Let's trim their numbers."

Enkrid looked away from Rem and said.

"Barbarian bastard, always stripping out only the meat."

Ragna said and stepped out.

Toward one side of the enemy infantry.

He walked, step by step.

The Madmen Company had pulled out to one side of the allied formation, and since they were not many, they did not draw much attention.

Everyone was being soaked in the madness of group battle.

Enkrid watched Ragna's back.

A knight was said to be a disaster that could face a thousand.

Then what was Ragna, who had come infinitely close to knighthood?

He was not hurt, and he was not tired. He had also filled his stomach well yesterday.

Ragna dug into the enemy infantry flank.

No, he looked like he seeped into it.

He walked and made contact.

In this kind of battle, no one needed to search for routes.

You just cut whatever looked like the enemy.

On the flank touched by Ragna, men started dropping like bundles of straw.

Whoosh, his sword moved. An enemy's head flew off.

No scream, no surprise.

They died without even knowing when they had died.

Ragna swung calmly, and enemy numbers began to shrink.

As people kept falling one by one in a short time, the enemy noticed Ragna too.

That changed nothing.

Knowing was worse.

A reaper had jumped into ordinary soldiers.

In the meantime, Enkrid watched several moving figures and spoke. A few enemy soldiers were clearly moving with intent.

"Jaxon?"

"Leave them to me."

It meant he would handle them.

The enemy was not stupid either. Not the Five Weapons, but their adjutants were weaving through normal infantry.

A proper tactic.

If special fighters stayed hidden among common soldiers and kept hitting, allied numbers would drop fast.

Formation advantage or not, elite small units were the kind that flipped battlefields.

Stopping them before that was right.

Jaxon moved one by one, tracking fighters with unusual movement.

While that happened, Enkrid walked toward enemy lines again.

"What the hell is this bastard?"

In the rear, he headed toward the ranks still lined up and not yet engaged. Enemy soldiers spoke but did not recklessly scatter formation to rush him.

Enkrid ignored them and kept walking.

A huge shadow fell in front of him. It was the man standing against the sun. He was big, huge, bigger even than Audin.

"My name is Benukt. I am a giant."

The voice sounded like it came from a cave.

No need to say he was a giant. From far away, he already filled the eye.

The man came with both fists forward and took a stance.

Something about it reminded Enkrid of Audin.

Enkrid raised his drawn sword high.

The silver blade showed itself not in sunlight, but between shadows.

Both men in stance read each other's breathing.

No, they tried to read it.

Each watched for the best possible instant to take the upper hand.